Neighbor Saves Boy Who Set Self Ablaze

Five-year-old Kacy Frederick was still on fire Tuesday when he knocked on his neighbor's door.

The woman who answered screamed. Aulder Brown, who was inside about to take a shower, came running to the door when he heard the commotion.

"His shirt was literally blazing," said Brown, who lives next door to the boy's family in the 900 block of Northwest 13th Street in Fort Lauderdale. "He was just crying. He couldn't talk."

Brown tried to rip the burning shirt off the boy.

"Then I realized I was stripping his skin," he said. "So I ran to the kitchen and got a basin with water to put the fire out."

Though he survived, Kacy has a long fight ahead of him, officials said.

He was listed in critical condition with third-degree burns to more than 30 percent of his body, said Todd LeDuc, spokesman for Broward County Fire-Rescue, which airlifted Kacy to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami on Tuesday afternoon.

Kacy appears to have been playing with matches while home alone after school when his clothing caught fire, said Fort Lauderdale Police Detective Mike Reed.

Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue took the boy to Broward General Medical Center, but he had to be taken to Miami because of the severity of his burns.

Kacy, a kindergartner at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, usually goes to sleep or watches cartoons when he's left home alone, said Enalia Philippe, his mother.

Neighbors watch for Kacy when no one else is home but he could have been alone Tuesday had Brown not returned home from work early for a doctor's appointment.